John McHippopotamus - A Hippo Essay

By Sue Alexander

March 21, 2019

The Administrators, Moderators and Ambassadors have been getting more questions lately about the rationale behind some of how we do things works. Here is a story to help you understand the culture here a little more clearly. Please note: this is perhaps the longest thing I have written for Losing Lulu, at almost 3000 words, but if you persevere through it all, you are going to learn a lot about hippos and the culture of our list and what to do to help support the wonderful place this has become. If you are new to Lulu, or if you want to make sure that you really understand the culture, please take the time to read this. It is in depth, comprehensive and I hope somewhat amusing.

Once there was a very nice kind family who wanted to do the right thing when they added a hippopotamus to their family. They had a large home with a three-car garage so their hippo would not have to live chained out in the yard like some of the poor sad hippos owned by family members, and they had a pond for a hippo to wade in every day. They attended the local hippo shows to learn more about hippos, how to train them, what they ate and how to exercise them, and this family felt they were REALLY ready to add a hippo to their lives. They looked into several hippo breeders and visited a hippo rescue and they even fostered a hippo for a weekend, so they started to get really excited about adding a hippo to their lives. There seemed to be so many options for adding a hippo to their lives. The rescues told them that shopping condemned perfectly lovely hippos to death and that they should not support hippo breeders. The hippo breeding society told them that rescues were just placing the horrible nasty hippos. If they shouldn’t rescue, and they shouldn’t buy, what were they going to do?

And then the unimaginable happened. Their oldest daughter, a fine young lady of nine found a hippo wandering at large. She did everything that she had seen the lady at the rescue do, and enticed this hippo into their lovely fenced yard. Mom of course was surprised by the sudden addition of a hippo to their lives, but they had wanted a hippo anyhow, so why not keep this one while they tried to find her family.

The nice kind family made posters and put them up around the neighbourhood, they called their vet, and the local SPCH (Society for the Protection and Care of Hippopotamus) and they made a decent effort at finding the original family, but it was a complete mystery where this hippo had come from. The youngest son decided that this hippo should be called Lulu. At first, Lulu the hippo seemed quite shy, and she didn’t actually like being touched a whole lot but the vet assured them with a whole lot of love, good feed and the opportunity to swim in the pond she would likely come around. Love was in abundance. When Lulu ran out of good food in the three-car garage, she helped herself to the rose bushes, the waterlilies, the lawn and then finally the neighbours azaleas that were growing through the fence.

One thing Lulu was very clear about is that she didn’t like strangers, but this is a known issue for hippos. The very kind family made a big mistake one day. They took her to a local park for a dip and an opportunity to play with other hippos, and sadly, she flipped over a glass bottomed boat full of tourists from out of town and proceeded to eat the engine housing on the boat. When a firefighter tried to scare her off with a firehose, she became aggressive and ate the firefighter. The SPCH was called, and she was quarantined for two weeks in case she was rabid and then she was ordered to be leashed at all times when off property. The very kind family was very sad because they had hoped to train Lulu in Hipp-agility and join in the fun with their new hippo friends but that was obviously off the table now. Lulu’s world was much smaller than had been hoped.

One night, after dinner, the very kind family sat down to dinner and watch their very favourite show Good Hippo! Where the world-famous hippo trainer showed hippo rehab. This particular evening, the featured hippo was an incorrigible hippo who had broken out of his garage repeatedly and was rolling cars in a local car park. The host of the show, Johnny McHippopotamidae, would come out to the family home and work one on one with your very own troubled hippopotamus. And as luck would have it the show was looking for their next hippo guest.

The very nice, very kind family wanted to help Lulu. They wanted the best for her. So the applied to have Johnny McHippopotamidae come out and they were lucky enough to be selected. The very next weekend, Johnny and his film crew showed up to help. The training seemed to go very well at first, and the family was delighted to be featured on tv shortly afterwards. Sadly, two days after the show aired, Lulu escaped, and attacked the neighbours baby hippo and sent her to the vet hospital. The SPCH was called again and the very nice, very kind family was cited for allowing Lulu to get out of their yard, and fined.

This was the start of a long road for Lulu. Another trainer was brought in who explained to the very nice family that Johnny McHippopotamidae was very well known but did not have any actual education in hippo training. The family was given strict and difficult exercises to follow to try and teach Lulu that she must not do the things that she loved to do. She must not turn over the boat in the pond. She must not eat firefighters. She must not escape the yard. She must not maul neighbouring hippo babies. And Lulu started to behave very strangely. She began to run in circles, trampling the garden furniture. She refused to come in at night. She walked straight through a glass door, and into the family room and demolished all the furniture. And then one day she tried to eat the family’s cat.

Johnny McHippopotamus reached out to follow up with the family. They told him that he was unwelcome because their new trainer had told them how bad he was. This made Johnny McHippo very angry so he talked about suing the very nice family. He knew who their vet was from their pre-recording contract and he threatened to sue the vet too. The family was so confused! They just wanted to have a nice friendly house hippo to enrich their lives and they were getting so much conflicting information, and now the nice guy who showed up to film them was talking law suit. To add to their distress, they were all starting to be a little bit afraid of Lulu. She was big and strong and she was behaving in a way very unlike the hippos they had met before she came into their lives.

Not surprisingly, Lulu’s behaviour got even more extreme as the family’s stress went up. Then one day during a garden party, she ate Aunt Marge who had shown up with her dog. That was the final straw for the very nice family, and they decided that Lulu would have to be euthanized. They called out the vet who was very kind and they sadly said their last goodbyes to Lulu. After Lulu died, the very nice family’s journey got even worse.

To begin with, a Hippopotamus extremist targeted their social media accounts, and accused them of murdering a perfectly lovely hippo. Every day they experienced on line bullying.

Johnny McHippopotamus followed through with his threats of a law suit, to both the family and the vet, because they had each posted unflattering descriptions of him and his training on their social media accounts.

The neighbours had stopped talking to the very nice, very kind family after Lulu had mauled their young hippo, and now they would walk by the house with the young hippo and stop and let her poop on the lawn.

Their family didn’t talk to them because, after all, Aunt Marge was an important part of the family too.

A lot of bad things happened and a lot of drama ensued, and a lot of this story informs how we operate Losing Lulu. Let me use this to answer some questions.

Who was the “real” Lulu? Lulu was Trish McMillan’s foster dog. Trish had worked with her for a year, and one day Lulu attacked one of the other dogs she lived with. Trish and the rescue decide that euthanasia was the only option. Trish took a lot of heat from keyboard warriors. Losing Lulu was founded on the premise that blaming and shaming would never help the grief process. We are now adding naming to the list of things that should not happen here, but you are going to have to read on to find out more about that.

So why hippos in all my essays? Well, so far as I know, no one actually keeps hippos as pets. Joanne Wilson, one of our wonderful Ambassadors, suggested that in South Africa it might be possible that someone would have a pet hippo, but I am going with the idea that an animal who is known for flipping boats over and drowning the humans might not be a common pet even there. I chose the hippo because it is unlikely and I want anyone who has lost any animal friend to a behaviour problem to be welcomed here. We have had people talk about their dogs, cats, horses, bunnies and snakes, but I know of parrots, raccoons, skunks, ferrets and other animals who have died due to a behaviour issue. And if you happen to have a pet hippo, and your hippo has a behaviour problem, and he or she dies of that, then please, talk about your beloved hippos. All these animals are Lulu, and they are all welcome here.

Why don’t we allow second guessing? Wouldn’t understanding why each Lulu died help us out? Maybe. But usually that leads to a whole lot of guilt, and who needs to go on that trip?! Once an animal has died, we cannot train them, choose different veterinary care, choose different management, we cannot change anything about the animal’s life. And suggesting that understanding what happened might change that is forgetting that we are already really good at self-hating when it comes to the errors we have made.

Why don’t we allow naming? Wouldn’t having someone to point fingers at make us feel better? Probably not. And in the meantime, we open ourselves up to the possibility of litigation (go back and reread about Johnny McHippopotamidae if you are in doubt; this happens, and not only when we are talking about big name and well-known trainers; it can happen any time we bad mouth a trainer, rescue or breeder). Please note that JM is a fictional hippo trainer, and not related in any way to ANY of the MANY trainers found on the screen anywhere in the world; there are oodles of them and he is an example of all of them, just like Lulu the hippo is an example of all animals who have died of a behaviour problem. From here on out, if you have had a bad experience with a specific rescue, a specific trainer, a specific vet, a specific breeder or a specific individual, please “this happened. I am hurt. This is my experience and it has affected me in this way. You don’t have to say the name of the person or organization. If you are a member of the same demographic as identified in a post, please read kindly and make sure you don’t read into it that the author hates you in particular That just isn’t how it works.

Why don’t we allow shaming or blaming? Really? You have to ask? Because it is hurtful and that is counter to the culture we are developing here! Don’t do it. Report it if you see it.

What about if I worked with a rescue/trainer/breeder/vet or other individual who really hurt me? It is fine to say “this happened to me, and I am really hurt. I don’t think I can do that ever again.” I will share that one of my dogs many years ago escaped from a veterinary clinic and was killed by a car, due to negligence on the part of the staff, and for three years I could not seek medical care for any of my animals because I was so deeply traumatized. Never the less, I am clear that this happened because of one vet’s clinic’s practices, and that not all vets are negligent. I have many very close friends in the veterinary world and I hold veterinarians in very high regard. This happened. I was hurt. Find a vet you can work with; vets are good people. One wasn’t. You don’t need to know who and I am unwilling to share that information because it sure won’t bring my special dog, Crow, back, and it sure isn’t much fun to play let’s gang up on the one vet who betrayed my trust. This happened to me. I was hurt. Moving right along.

What about when I feel confused and I need to process that confusion and I need to give you ALL the gory details? Write it all out in a document. Post on the group; “I have a post that I want to share, and I need a Lulu to help me to edit to make sure it is suitable to put up.” Don’t share the document; PM that document to the editor you select. Stop posting things that say “if this is off topic, please delete”. The Admins, Moderators and Ambassadors have a LOT to cover here. We cannot be your editors. We are currently discussing having a hard policy that deletes all posts that start that way without even reading them. If you are in doubt, make a post and ask for someone to volunteer to help edit. Don’t include your story, though! If you see a post like that, reply with an offer to help if you have the time and energy. There are nearly 1500 of us; surely someone in the world will offer to help. Then when a few offers have surfaced, you can select someone to help you out, connect via PM, share the post and edit it together.

What about sharing things I find valuable? Screen shots and cut and pasted posts are not to be shared from Lulu. Seriously folks, this is a grief support group and the only way it can work is if folks feel safe about sharing their information. That doesn’t work if you then share it off the group. Just don’t do it. If that happens, please note where you saw that off list, and alert the Admins; Sue Alexander or Trish McMillan. We will take it from there and try and figure out how it made it off the list. If someone is shown to have done this they will be removed from the list without any notice or explanation. We won’t do that if we are not sure, however, we WILL do that if we can track down who did it.

What about graphic images? What about them? Well, I know what a mauled person looks like. And an injured dog. And an injured cat. I don’t need to see it again. We believe your truth. If you say “my hippo turned over a tourist boat and ate the engine housing” I have enough background to guess what that might look like. I don’t need to see even one more drowning person to understand what you are suggesting.

What about graphic descriptions? Be sensitive. You can say “My lovely hippo Lulu ate a firefighter” without explaining about how she did that. I don’t need to know. I really, really don’t. I know what hippos eating firefighters looks like and telling me about the gory details is not going to make my day any easier. Be kind when you post. Likewise, be kind when you read. If something is too graphic for you scroll on through. If you think it might be too graphic for the list; report it and the Modmin team will decide. If you want help rewording to make something more acceptable, see above for description of how to ask fellow Luluers to help you.

Why does it sometimes take all day for the Modmin team to address a reported post? So far this has only come to my attention once, but consider this. We have global coverage. We are across 24 time zones. There are about 8 moderators and me and Trish. That means that if our Australian moderator sees something and wants a second opinion (most decisions are made by more than one of us, and often we all weigh in before we decide on something), she has to wait till someone in South Africa, Europe or the eastern section of North America wakes up and turns on the net. Sometimes we are going to have to wait till another moderator gets on and then we need to kick it around a bit. When you figure out how I can administrate Lulu, run a large dog training company, ride my horse, spend time with my husband, canoe, bathe, eat, hunt, fish, AND sleep, just let me know. We are all busy, this is a voluntary activity and we are doing our best.

So to summarize:

1. Don’t blame, shame or name.

2. Don’t share material outside the group.

3. There is not need for graphic images or descriptions.

4. Ask for help from your fellow Luluers if you need an editor to stay within the rules or if you need help reviewing your wording so that you don’t put up something that is too graphic. Don’t post your story; just post a request for an editor, choose an editor and then PM them your post.

5. Be kind in your writing. Be kind in your reading.

6. Scroll on by things that upset you.

7. Report things that violate the spirit of the group.

8. Send any potential links to either Sue Alexander or Trish McMillan for approval before posting.

9. Be patient with the Admins, Moderators and Ambassadors.

10. Give yourself a pat on the back, because for the VERY most part, you guys are amazing.

One final point? Why do I use pictures from my vacation? Because I have them, and they are pretty. They seem to strike a chord with people. and what else am I going to do with 1500 images of Northern Ontario? I like them. Today’s image is a frog on my gear, late at night, hunting insects. I am not entirely certain but this may be a pickerel frog. He was a male (you can tell by the size of the tympanic membrane relative to the eye). He is one of the few amphibious species I got an image of, and since hippos are of the species Hippopotamus amphibious, it seemed like a good species to share.